


I need you here with me

by WeWalkADifferentPath



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Alec is Magnus's anchor, And so are his friends, Asmodeus mention, Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Post 3x10, no I don't know how Ragnor is appearing please dont @ me, ok there's probably more hurt in this than I anticipated, spoilers obviously for the end of the season, this is me missing Ragnor mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 23:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14681484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeWalkADifferentPath/pseuds/WeWalkADifferentPath
Summary: “You’re here,” Magnus said.He poured himself another two fingers of his drink, taking a quick shot of it before spinning the glass idly in his hand. “I’m surprised that you came.”





	I need you here with me

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't get the idea of a Magnus and Ragnor conversation out of my head at 4am last night, so I typed half of it up on my phone then and quickly edited the rest between work today. 
> 
> The finale left my soul astral projecting into the void so, this is what comes of it. Thank you to my forever supportive tumblr mutuals who inspire me to keep posting my garbage.
> 
>  
> 
> [Read it on tumblr.](http://www.wewalkadifferentpath.tumblr.com/post/173968796688/i-need-you-here-with-me-read-on-ao3-magnus)

“Magnus, I’ve got him.” Cat’s voice was soft. Ever the proficient nurse. “I’ve got him. He will need a few hours of sleep, at least, but his injuries are mostly healed. He’ll be okay.”

Magnus let out a breath. In front of him, Alec was laid out on his bed, body slack and positioned awkwardly as if he’d been knocked unconscious. He basically had been; Magnus knew from experience that Cat’s sedatives were strong. 

He reached forward, brushing a few stray bits of hair out of Alexander’s face. Gently, slowly, he cupped the arm that had been broken, feeling his stomach clench uncomfortably as he moved it as delicately as he could into a more comfortable position. 

It was fine now. Alexander was fine now. 

But before, when it had happened…

“My dear Alexander,” he murmured, stroking Alexander’s arm lightly with the tips of his fingers. His skin was warm, probably warmer than it should have been, as if he had a fever. 

Cat smiled. “He’s strong. Resilient.”

“He’s had to be.” Magnus knew even as he said it that it was an understatement. For all that he had done to try to protect his Shadowhunter, there was so much that Magnus hadn’t been able to do, so much that he hadn’t been able to fix.  


_Especially now,_ he reminded himself, shivering. 

Now he was as good as useless.

He pressed his fingers more firmly into Alexander’s wrist, feeling for the steadiness of his pulse. The quiet, fluttery thumping was a little fast, but healthy. An anchor.

 _Alexander_ was his anchor, his rock, even while asleep. 

The thought should scare him. But somehow he couldn’t muster the energy for it.

Cat tilted her head at him knowingly. “I rigged the room,” she told him. “You’ll be able to hear Alec’s breathing and pulse from anywhere in the house.” She rose, packing away the remaining bits of her medical equipment with an air of strung out fatigue. “You don’t have to sit here and watch him.” This was punctuated with a pointed look at Magnus. “You can eat. And rest. And have some time, to yourself.”

Magnus nodded. “I suppose that I should sleep.”

“Can I trust you to do that?” Cat asked, and the question was only halfway a joke. Both of them knew that there had been times in Magnus’s life where he had answered that question with a negative.

He knew that if he asked her, Cat would stay. But he also knew that she was eager to get back to the child in her care. “Yes, Cat, thank you. Now please, go home to Madzie.”

She sighed, reaching out with one free arm to wrap Magnus in a quick, tight hug. He accepted it, breathing her in and trying to pretend that it was comforting, instead of a reminder that he could no longer feel the buzz of her magic mingling with his, quick and smooth and frazzled as it always was.

Had been. 

He knew that she could feel the difference too. “Take care of yourself, Magnus. Okay?” She leaned back to look him in the eye. “Call me if you need me.”

“I will,” he lied. Her lip turned up wryly. 

“Goodnight, Magnus.” A quick peck on his cheek, and then she opened a portal in one fluid movement and stepped through. 

Magnus dropped his shoulders wearily. 

Alec’s deep and even breathing punctured the darkness in waves, sure and regular against the silence in Magnus’s mind. It was a comfort, but also a reminder.

He sunk down to perch on the edge of the bed. “Alexander…”

He couldn’t finish the thought. What could he say? _I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you?_

_Thank you for being okay?_

My condolences, for your unfortunate luck in falling in love with a half-demon storm of man?

Instead, he settled for leaning forward to brush his lips against Alexander’s forehead.

\-- -- --

“You’re here,” Magnus said.

He poured himself another two fingers of his drink, taking a quick shot of it before spinning the glass idly in his hand. “I’m surprised that you came.”

The living room was dark, fragmented only by the lamp beside him and the one across from him. Bathed in that orange-tinted circle of light, sitting on the couch as if he’d never left, Ragnor smiled. 

Magnus looked back down at his hands. “I had wondered if you might have been…”

“An apparition of your magic?” Ragnor’s lip quirked up again. “No,” he said, shifting his hands one over the other, palms up, as if he himself were about to cast a spell right then. “Your magic always did protect you well, but I’m afraid that even it can’t quite get my image right.”

Magnus snorted. He took another sip, letting his gaze linger on the amber liquid as it made rocky waves in his glass. He resolutely ignored the _did._ “Perhaps I could cut back on the martinis.”

Ragnor shook his head just slightly, lips pressed together. “My dear friend,” he said, leaning forward, even as Magnus shuffled forward to meet him in the middle; he grasped the corner of Magnus’s chin gently between his thumb and forefinger. “You always were a foolish, foolish drunk. And—“ he added, leaning back again with a near audible stretch, “we both know that that abomination of a drink is not even close to a martini.”

Magnus nodded absently, but couldn’t muster a retort. Instead he reached again for the silence, feeling needy for its reprieve. 

Unexpectedly, and rather uncomfortably, he was met with the jumbled noise of the cars going by on the road outside his window. 

He had put up wards to seal the sound out of his loft-- hadn’t he? He must have removed them. After all, time hadn’t been moving in the most linear fashion, recently. 

Just one more unfortunate consequence of war.

“When you met me.” Magnus inhaled raggedly and let it go in a rush. “I was…”

“A tremendously traumatized young man.” Ragnor’s voice was gentle. 

Magnus spun a ring around his finger. “Yes.” The light from the jewelry cast out around him in little spirals and dots of gold, reflecting off the window behind Ragnor’s image. “Nevertheless, I was… I was Asmodeus’s son. I am Asmodeus’s son.”

Ragnor nodded, raising a pointed eyebrow. In the back room, Alec snorted and shuffled, blankets rustling and breathe speeding up before settling. 

“I fought so hard,” Magnus whispered, mostly to himself. “I tried so hard to be better than him.”

 _I tried to be good,_ he almost added. 

He tried not to be _destruction,_ but still he named himself in its honour and he walked in its wake. 

Ragnor’s eyes glinted. “You have always been a better man than him, Magnus.”

What Ragnor meant was, _you didn’t need to try._ What Ragnor meant was, _you’ve always been good._

They’d played this game, had this back and forth, hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways over the course of Magnus’s long life. In speeches, in looks, in cups of tea, in drunken monologues and in moments that Magnus would never have let anyone else see. They didn’t need words anymore.

Ragnor, who had found his own name in the concept of endings, had always looked at Magnus’s destruction and seen hope. 

“What would I do without you?” Magnus asked. It was automatic, a question that he had asked aloud to his friend many times before. This time, the implications hit him with a suddenness that left him winded. He choked on the urge to try to snatch the words back, take them deep into his chest where the coldness of the night around them couldn’t bear witness to them.

Ragnor seemed to sense the delicacy of Magnus’s sudden anxiety, and left a soft pause before speaking. “You would be even more of a miserable wretch than you are now.”

That startled a laugh from him. It bubbled out of Magnus from somewhere desperate and a little animalistic, a hysterical noise that he was glad that no one was around to hear. In the back, Alec’s heart rate was steady, though he mumbled something in his sleep. 

“What will I do without my magic?” Magnus asked, once he’d composed himself again. It came out like a plea. “I have nothing left, Ragnor.” 

_Please, my oldest friend, tell me that I’m wrong again._

Ragnor shook his head, some of his hair falling slightly forward to lay against his left horn. “You know that that’s not true.”

Magnus twisted his ring again, watching the light spin over and over. A never ending, never breaking series of colour. “I’m going to die.”

This time Ragnor rolled his eyes. “You were always going to die, my incorrigible friend. If you’re forgetting that, then perhaps I should take the whisky away from you.” 

Tears sprung, unbidden, to prick at Magnus’s eyes. Spitefully, he let them. Screw composure. Not now, not after this. His father had already taken his dignity.

Ragnor shuffled forward, leaning to pick up Magnus’s hand where he’d been reaching again for his glass. Ragnor caught it and held it firmly between both of his own, familiar warmth somehow seeping through to Magnus’s skin in a way that he didn’t want to understand. 

He didn’t care anymore how he could be with his friend, only that he could.

Still, he stiffened. The last time his hand had been held was when he’d clung onto Alexander’s earlier that day; when his lovely, direly injured soldier had been lying there, on the concrete, gasping for air and looking like- 

“You will not die alone.” 

Magnus swallowed as the tears finally sprung forward, clouding his vision and choking up his throat. He raised his unclaimed hand and grabbed at his collar, feeling the need to claw the fabric off of himself. 

“I know.” His voice was hoarse, but steady. He thought of Catarina, with her freely given warmth and infinite understanding. And Raphael, troubled though the boy may be; though the thought that he was no longer able to support his son only caused him to dig his nails deeper into his collar.

And Alexander…

He glanced up at Ragnor, finally, who looked at him fondly and squeezed his hand. “No, you don’t,” Ragnor corrected gently. “But you will, my friend.”

Ragnor’s gaze was intent, and Magnus found himself unable to dissolve the intensity in his words. His confidant had always had him pinned like that. He supposed it was his weakness. 

“There will come a time when you will truly understand the magnitude of love that you have been able to build around you, Magnus. And then you will never feel alone again,” Ragnor smiled, revealing a rare flash of his teeth, “With or without me around to bang it into your stubborn head. That I can promise you, if nothing else.”

Magnus smiled wetly, tasting salt on the edge of his tongue. He’d missed Ragnor, more than he had ever let himself think possible. 

“Your promises do have a pretty good track record,” Magnus conceded. 

Ragnor winked, and then paused, shifting his chin up to look behind Magnus’s head. His expression softened. “Here comes one promise right now.”

Alexander. 

Magnus turned, to see that Ragnor was right-- Alexander stood in the doorway of his bedroom. The bed-rumpled Shadowhunter was half-slumped against the door frame and rubbing at his arm, watching Magnus with a curious expression. 

“Magnus.” His tilted head filled in the inflection, the question clear in his eyes. 

Magnus smiled. “I’m coming to bed, Alexander,” he assured, nodding at him. His heart constricted heavily. “Just give me one moment to finish up here, hmm?”

Alexander nodded, dazed and tired. But he paused, for one electrified second, to hold eye contact with Magnus; then turned, as if he hadn’t just split Magnus’s heart open for that one infinite moment, to head back to bed. Leaving Magnus once again alone in the darkness. 

“My apologies for the interruption,” Magnus said to the emptiness, once he knew for certain that Alexander was out of earshot. He turned back to the couch where Ragnor had been sitting, knowing already in his heart that it would be empty. He had known as soon as the warmth had left his hand. 

“You’re right, though,” Magnus whispered anyway. “Like I said, my dear cabbage, you always give the best advice.”

After an unsurprising beat of silence, Magnus rose wearily, joints crackling in protest. He shuffled himself quietly into the bedroom, shedding his clothes as went until he was wearing nothing but his shirt and briefs. Lifting the blanket, he snuggled in gently next to Alexander, near enough to feel his warmth but careful to keep a safe distance from his injuries.

“I miss you,” he told the ceiling. Inexplicably, foolishly unable to let go of his end of the conversation. He rubbed at an eye childishly, angry with his tears. “I wish you were still here with me for this.”

But if there was anything that Magnus had learned in his long life, it was that wishes weren’t worth much. 

In his sleep, Alec grabbed for him, tugging Magnus gently toward his chest. Magnus smiled cautiously. Perhaps, he thought, he could allow the heat and closeness to make him feel safe. Just for one night. 

Pressing another fleeting kiss to Alec’s forehead, Magnus also let himself imagine that he could see the glinting flash of a horn from behind his door frame- and perhaps the briefest glimpse of an approving smile. Then he closed his eyes, and let himself fall into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Magnus gets a call the next morning from Catarina before Alec wakes up. She says it's just because "she had a hunch he needed it."
> 
> Kudos and comments feed my soul, but I hope it was okay either way!
> 
> Come yell at me about things and stuff at [wewalkadifferentpath.](http://www.wewalkadifferentpath.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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